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Some thoughts on the Tyre Nichols beating and murder [1]

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Date: 2023-01-27

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how the number of people killed by police was documented to have reached an all-time high in 2021.

At least 1,176 people were killed by police officers last year, according to the project Mapping Police Violence—the most since experts began tracking police violence and the use of deadly force. The number represents the killing of more than three people per day on average by police officers, or nearly 100 per month last year. x According to the Lancet the number of Americans killed by police is actually double the official number every year. So that means 2022 saw closer to 2,400 murders by police. That’s 6.4 killings a day. https://t.co/uDysKsNzAP — Lee Camp [Redacted] (@LeeCamp) January 3, 2023 In 2020, he year Floyd was killed, at least 1,152 people were killed by police officers, and in 2021 1,145 people were killed. As researchers showed in a study published in The Lancet in 2021, about half of killings by law enforcement agents go unreported, so the true number of people killed by the police last year may be double the figure reported by Mapping Police Violence. People killed by the police in 2022 included Jayland Walker, who was killed by Akron, Ohio police officers after they chased him following an alleged traffic violation; Donovan Lewis, who was fatally shot by a Columbus, Ohio officer in August after police came to his house with a warrant; and Patrick Lyoya, who was killed by Grand Rapids, Michigan police after he ran away from an officer who grabbed him during a traffic stop due to an issue with his license plate. In 32% of the cases documented by Mapping Police Violence, the victim was fleeing the police before they were killed. Legal experts say police are almost always unjustified in shooting people when they are running away from law enforcement, particularly after being suspected of committing nonviolent crimes. "These are routine police encounters that escalate to a killing," Samuel Sinyangwe, a data scientist and policy analyst who founded Mapping Police Violence, told The Guardian. "What's clear is that it's continuing to get worse, and that it's deeply systemic." Only 31% of police killings took place after an alleged violent crime, while 46% did not involve people who had been accused of violence. Nine percent took place during mental health or welfare checks, 8% involved traffic violations, 18% involved allegations of nonviolent offenses, and 11% involved no alleged offense.

So we are not at all dealing with an isolated case here. There are thousands of these cases every year. About 30% of the time the victim — like Tyre — is completely unarmed.

It is early, as this only happened last week, but there are a lot of unanswered questions in this case.

First of all is — why did it happen at all?

Why was Tyre stopped? How did he escape and run away after the officers attempted to use pepper spray? Why did things escalate? Why didn’t anyone try to stop or de-escalate the situation? Why didn’t anyone — including the paramedics — provide any care to Tyre until after they decided to just — stand around for several minutes? Some reports are that he was beaten even while handcuffed and that that beating — from both his Step-Father and the Chief of police — that his beating was “worst than Rodney King.” I’d say so since Rodney King survived even if he did suffer a cracked skull.

Why was there no recognition of his humanity?

This can’t have been their first rodeo. I’m only speculating here, but this can’t possibly have been the first time that these officers had done largely the same thing, but there was no complaint, and no outcry because the victim survived and chose to stay silent for fear of suffering another beating -- or Internal Affairs ignored the complaint. [Ben Crump just confirmed this on TV. They ignored the complaint.]

These were officers on the S.C.O.R.P.I.O.N. Anti-Crime unit. Tasked with taking violent felons, armed criminals and gangsters off the street. They’re supposed to be dealing regularly with the worst of the worst. I’ve seen a similar attitude — through the lens of my former police officer/roommate Joe Tocco — with the L.A. Sheriffs' deputies who are tasked with handling prisoners for several years before they go out onto the streets. For years, everyone they meet on the job is considered a scumbag and is treated like the worst in human scum. This pushes you to treat everyone as if they are the worst.

So not surprisingly, there needs to be a re-evaluation of these SCORPION units. Just as perhaps we should question the re-deployment of Anti-Crime units in New York City once again.

It is commendable that there has been such a fast and decisive response by the Department and by the TBI (Tennessee Bureau of Investigation) to this event. The officers were all quickly fired. The investigation was rapid and thorough, and then without hesitation, hedging, or victim blaming, charges of murder were filed.

That has been impressive.

But it shouldn’t be. That should be the usual result. It has been impressive in this case largely because it is such a deviation from the norm. But then again it’s not really that much of a deviation when the officers involved are Black.

It certain wasn’t a deviation from with black officer Muhammad Noor wrongly shot and killed white Australian Tourist Justine Damond.

Justice was swift in that case. In a case where the police officer was black. It was also swift in the case where Officer Kim Potter mistakenly fired her service weapon instead of her taser and killed Daunte Wright.

Kim Potter, the former Minnesota police officer who mistakenly drew her handgun instead of her Taser during a traffic stop in April in which she fatally shot Daunte Wright, has been found guilty. Jurors had been deliberating since Monday before finding Potter, who had served as an officer in Brooklyn Center, Minn., for 26 years, guilty of first- and second-degree manslaughter charges in the death of Wright.

I’ve been encouraged that in these cases the killers were not shielded by the local prosecutor — as we saw initially with George Floyd and Amaud Arbery — and were not shielded by the Grand Jury — as we saw with Michael Brown — and were not shielded by the Jury — as we saw with Philando Castille and Trayvon Martin.

We can not allow this case, or the Kim Potter/Daunte Wright case, to lull us into a form of satisfaction and complacency.

We are *not* seeing this type of swift justice when the killers are White males.

I’m not sure that we’ll ever see that.

We have lots to think about. We haven't passed the George Floyd Act. We haven’t implemented a bill — as I’ve long argued we should — that codifies Tennessee v Garner. And we have even more to do before we sit back and sigh in any type of satisfaction that “Justice has been done.”

So far, in so many cases, it hasn't been — and it won’t be. But eventually, it might.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/27/2149614/-Some-thoughts-on-the-Tyre-Nichols-beating-and-murder

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